The House

Rating:
Summary: Wow.
Review: This is a great story, plain and simple. Different plot. Twists. Great characters. The right mix of disturbing horror and the more cryptic stuff that runs a cold finger across your neck. Kind of like King's "It". A real good read.

Rating:
Summary: Worse horror (?) story I ever read
Review: The book started very powerfully, but the second half is completely ridiculus - so ridiculus it's almost funny. If Mr. Little got so bored writing it that he decided to wrap it up, imagine how you'll feel.

Rating:
Summary: A sloooooow book
Review: I was hoping for a good, creepy Thriller book, but what I got was just the opposite. Aside from the mysterious pasts of the intersting characters, the book lacked appeal. I almost did not finish it, but I was a little curious about how they would get out of there.

Rating:
Summary: An Empty House
Review: I am a fan of all of Mr. Little's books and I find him to be one of the most interesting horror writers being published today. I'm sorry to say that this book was a disappointment in every way. I didn't feel any sense of tragedy as the main family was destroyed because so many of the family were not particularly likeable. Mr. Little has created imaginative deaths, unfortunately they are more laughable than frightening (a woman gives birth to a cactus with a face on it, a minister is choked to death by the bible, and another man is strangled by his belly button). Most of the deaths occur to people we have never met before who appear in a scene and die two pages later. There is no buildup, no sense of suspense. And the book requires the main family, who constantly sees various supernatural phenomena, to stipudly ignore all the frightening (to them, alas not to the reader) things that they see. Finally, the grandmother speaks in bad, heavily accented aphorisms, apparently forgetting that fortune cookies come with Chinese Food, not borscht. I eagerly await Mr. Little's next book. He is too good of a writer of genuinely creepy, get-under-your-skin horror for this to be anything but an uncharacteristic stumble. Don't make this your first Bentley Little book. Buy The Store or any other book by him and you will see why this author has so many fans.

Rating:
Summary: Convoluted
Review: After reading The Store, I picked up The House with high hopes. The opening sequence was interesting but failed to connect in my estimation to the remainder of the book. The various storylines did not co-mingle well and often lead to confusion. This hampered the flow of the novel and seemed to make it drag on instead of the steady flow exhibited in his earlier novels. The characters were flat and uninteresting. Many of the scenarios created throughout the book seemed to have no value to the overall storyline. Mr. Little has definitely written better!

Rating:
Summary: Horror for the zombie-minded (you know, brain dead)
Review: I can honestly say that The House is one of the worst horror novels that I have read. Little can't seem to genuinely frighten the reader, so he fills the book with as many twisted images and outlandish things that he can think of without even bothering to make them relevant to the plot. The book is filled with about six different stories, one for each character, and while they are similar, they never mesh and you are left with a big old dung heap of a chaotic storyline. The graphic sexual(including scenes involving children) and violent images may offend some, but after all, it is a horror novel(and then again, the people who complain about that sort of thing are usually picking up a trashy romance or Joan Collins novel the very next day). The real travesty of The House is that Little's style tries to be a cross between Stephen King (particularly The Shining...although Little seems to have more in common with Kubrick's film version) and H.P. Lovecraft, but ends up as a cheap knockoff of both. I decided not to devote so much time to a Little novel ever again, but I did try another short story of his which was equally hokey and unoriginal. Little's lack of creativity in plot, imagery, and style is one of the main downfalls of the horror genre. If you want good horror, try the masters: King, Koontz, Lovecraft, etc. Also, if you want a fresh up and comer to the genre, try Douglas Clegg, but don't enter Little's House!

Rating:
Summary: Graphic but Good
Review: This book starts off well. Each of the characters is introduced with each suffering some horrible experience. This book does get a bit graphic so if you offend easily, beware. Tails off a bit at the end but overall, very solid read. I will look for books by this author in the future.

Rating:
Summary: Bentley Little is the new breed of great horror writers!
Review: I hated reading any type of book for most of my life. As a matter of fact I would not read unless it was for a school assignment. One day, my Wife and I went to a book store to pick up a magazine; and I went to the horror section instead. I picked up "The House", and figured I would waste a few dollars on a book I would never read. Once I started reading the first page, for some strange reason I was hooked. I could not stop reading it. I finished the book in less than 4 days, and have been taken in by his books ever since. I have also read "The Store" and "The Revelation"; and I am starting on "The Town". Bentley Little is in one word (amazing!)

Rating:
Summary: A GREAT BOOK
Review: Characters I cared about, a unique plot and some of the most disturbing and surrealistic imagery I've encountered in genre fiction, THE HOUSE is one terrific book. Little's fiction has always dealt in a very literary and metaphoric manner with real life horrors, and here he addresses the influence the past has on the present, particularly the extent to which our families and our childhood memories define us as adults. Several readers have denounced the book because of its graphic sexual content (I guess gruesome killings are okay but sex is unacceptable?). A word to these people: Yes, the book is horrific. That's why it's called a HORROR novel. Duh.

Rating:
Summary: Please don't compare Little with Stephen King
Review: I thought this book was very weak. The writing is sophomoric, the plot non-existant, and the ending a great disappointment. I agree with the other review here that mentioned not caring about the characters. The story jumps so quickly and carelessly from character to character, that not only did I not care about them, I found myself constantly going back through the book in an attempt to remember what they had last been doing. As I read along, I felt as if Mr. Little just sat down and wrote whatever came to mind whether it made sense in the story or not, such as the laughing chalk picture or the naked woman sitting on the nest....most of these images were more laughable then frightening. And the nonchalant manor in which the walking dead (and dolls) are greeted at the reservation was some of the most non-believable writing I have ever encountered. To me, the sign of a good book is one where you KNOW the characters, one in which you can still name the characters, their likes and dislikes, quirks, etc., weeks after you finish reading. I had difficulty accomplishing this WHILE I was reading this book, let alone afterward. If you want a good ghost story, one that you cannot put down and will stay with you for weeks after, I would recommend Stephen King's "Bag of Bones". Now that is writing on a whole different level.